Broken Hearts Damaged Goods (14 page)

“But you celebrated it
by taking me to the aquarium.  I didn’t know why you would do that, until you
brought up
The Little Mermaid
.  You were trying to be the prince I have
been looking for.  You know that you could be that guy.  You want to be that
guy.”

“Yes!  I want to be
that guy, but then I’m with you and start to doubt everything that I’m
feeling.  What am I going to do if I screw this up?  Where will I turn?”

And as I watched him,
he turned into the scared, lost little puppy that I found at the bar the night
that Brittany left him.  “And what if we have sex, and I’m not as good as the
other guys that you’ve been with.  Will you still love me?”

I sat down beside him
and just held him.  “You might not realize it, but our first time is not going
to be about the actual sex.  It’s going to be about the expression of something
deeper.  And all couples are a little awkward at sex the first few times.  It’s
a matter of getting to know the other person, their technique, and getting into
a rhythm with them.  That’s something that we will be learning together.  And
it has nothing to do with your lack of experience or my...”

And he put his finger
to my lips to keep me from saying how experienced I am.  And we kissed a kiss
of understanding.

As we were in bed that
night, we both apologized for various things.  He said that he was sorry if he
did anything to lead me on, but that everything he did was because he cared for
me.  He’s just dealing with a fragment of a heart right now and needs to take
it slowly.

And I apologized for
being so crazy tonight.  And then I apologized for lying about it being my time
of the month.  I just didn’t want him to think that I was crazy.

I really do love him. 
I will just be glad when he is able to do more than just really like me.  It is
making being with him part heaven and part heartache.  I never know whether I
am getting closer to us getting together or whether I will get hurt by a guy
that is perfect for me and that just happened to come into my life at the wrong
time.

All of this is making
his kisses all that much sweeter.  I lay in bed most nights and cherish being
in his arms.  Thankfully he has never caught me watching him sleep.  He seems
so at peace when he is with me.  And he looks like he belongs there with me.

By

Jack Webber

W
hen I first started
dating Brittany, I was infatuated with her.  I couldn’t spend enough time with
her.  Since we were in high school, the time we spent together was in a few
hours after school and a couple more hours on the phone.  The weekends were
reserved for actual dates.

After three weeks of
this high school relationship, I told her that I loved her.  There was no doubt
in my mind at that time what I felt for her was love.

Telling her that I
loved her was probably one of the biggest gambles of my life.  She had never
given me any real indication that she liked me as anything more than a friend. 
We had kissed and held hands, but she seemed to be taking her time getting to
know me.

As I think back on it,
I was clearly leading the direction of the relationship at that time.  We were
good throughout high school.  The more that we got to know each other, the more
the relationship grew stronger.  We would need that strength during the summer
between high school and college as we were all that we had during an unpredictable
change in our lives.

Our first year of
college was also good.  We were each other’s support system.  As we enjoyed
more freedom, we grew closer together instead of farther apart.

The summer between our
freshman and sophomore years was one of the best summers of our lives.  Instead
of depending on each other for a sense of security, we could actually enjoy
each other’s company.

We almost had sex that
summer.  Being a guy, I thought that we should have already had sex.  We had
discussed it several times throughout our relationship.  She would always tell
me that she loved me, but that she wanted to wait until marriage.

That summer was our
golden era.  It was carefree and fun.  We were no longer two stupid kids in
high school.  We loved deeper and were more like an adult couple.

When we returned to
school in the fall, our relationship was the strongest it had ever been.  Maybe
I had gotten too secure in that feeling.  Maybe I started to take the
relationship for granted and stopped working on it.

Our work schedules and
class schedules changed.  We did spend less time together, but the time we did
spend together was good and free of conflict.

Looking back on it now,
I can see that we were fueling the relationship on the past.  We had fallen
into a rut and kept on following the same patterns that had worked for us in
the past.

During this time, we
told each other that we loved each other countless times, but each time it was
becoming more and more a lie.  By this past summer, we were no longer a couple
in love.  We had just grown used to each other and were afraid to admit that
something that was once so perfect had started to go wrong.

I’ve asked myself a
million times since the breakup why I asked her to marry me.  I think I knew
the relationship was having problems.  The thought of not having her in my life
scared me more than an imperfect relationship.

Instead of being in
love with Brittany, I really liked her.  I cared about her as a person and
didn’t want to see her get hurt.  We should have broken up some time last year,
but we allowed our relationship to endure.

Looking back on it now,
I realize that I asked her to marry me because it was the next step and my last
chance of keeping the relationship together.

There are times that I
wish you could have funerals for people, places, things, and events in your
life that are over.  Brittany and I should have pulled the plug on our
relationship at least a year before it actually ended.  We could have held a
little service for each other, mourned the loss of what once was, and then
moved on.

The denial on both of
our parts is what hurts the most.  We just chose to deal with it in different
ways.  She chose to look for love somewhere else.  I chose to continue the lie
that was our relationship.

I don’t know what is
happening between me and Liselle.  She says that she loves me.  I only know
that I feel about her like I did with Brittany as the sun was starting to set
on our relationship.  Only I feel a little bit more for Liselle.

Liselle confuses me and
comforts me. If I’m falling in love with her, it’s nothing like when I fell in
love with Brittany.  Maybe that’s not being fair to Liselle.  Maybe love
doesn’t come the same way every time.  Maybe that’s why we keep looking for it
and sometimes miss it when it is right there in front of us.

I just don’t want to
get hurt again.  Liselle is all I have right now.  If I lose her, I will never
be able to recover.

By

Jack Webber

I
have always been told
that all is fair in love and war.  I can somewhat agree with the war part.  If
you have the ability to totally annihilate your enemy, go for it.  People’s
lives are at risk.  It’s better to destroy another people that will always be
nameless and faceless to you than to have a bunch of your own people die and to
have wounded soldiers walking around your town.

War is a nasty business
that is all about winning.  To make it beautiful and sanitary is beyond
reason.  What is fair is not really a question one should be asking when it
comes to war.  Why should one innocent civilian die while another lives?  Why
does one soldier live while the one standing next to him dies?

It matters to the loved
ones at home.  We would like for death to be fair.  We can blame God and tell
him that we think it’s not fair.  As much as it hurts, death is fair.  We all
have to go through it at some point.  Nobody can ever escape it.  So whether we
do it early in life or later is just a matter of timing. 

But if I can say
something about death, it is that it is the great equalizer.  The rich and the
poor are the same when they’re six feet under.

But love...  Ah, now that
is something entirely different.  If God is love and we want a fair and just
God, then love should be fair.

Love isn’t like war. 
It’s not about winning.  It’s about another human being.  If you want to
possess somebody’s affection so badly that you are willing to cheat to call
that person yours, then you will never really have that person.  You can have
that person physically, but the heart can only be given by the person to whom
it belongs.

I guess, in a way, that
love isn’t fair.  You can love somebody and never have them love you in return. 
But love is fair in that each of us are given a heart to love with, and we can
love whomever we want with that heart, even if the love isn’t reciprocated.

This is the problem
that I am facing now.  Somebody has declared their love for me.  I really like
them.  They are very special to me, and I would be lost without them.  And I am
physically attracted to them.  I just can’t honestly tell them that I love
them.

I’ve told them this
because it is the right thing to do to be fair to them.  I’ve been hurt by love
before.  I could have used this other person and claimed that it was all fair
in love and war, but that is thinking about love as war.

When you take the time
to actually discuss your feelings with another party and stop thinking solely
about your wants and desires, you find that love conquers war.

Oct. 21, 2010

Ever since I told Jack
that I loved him, he has been less passionate with me.  He still holds me
affectionately, looks at me longingly, and listens to everything I say.

Maybe the problem
didn’t start exactly right after I said that I loved him.  It has gotten worse
since then.  Thinking back on it, it really started a little after I squirted
on him, but he seemed okay with it right after it happened.  At least, he was
there for me.

I know that he keeps
saying that he is trying to not hurt me, but he’s hurting me more by making me
think that he really does love me and won’t admit it.  I’ve had my heart broken
a million times.  I prefer that to getting signals from a guy that only fan the
flames of hope that he could ever love me

Lately when I am in the
comfort of his arms, I have been going over every conversation we have ever
had.  Since we started out just using each other, I might have been a little
bit too open with the amount of guys that I’ve been with.

I got myself tested
today for STDs at the health center.  I don’t know why I did it, except that
it’s a good thing to do every now and then.

Ever since I met his
mom, I have felt a little bad about myself.  I haven’t met a lot of my
boyfriends’ moms.  Maybe I’m not the kind of girl that you bring home to Mom. 
Jack thought I was, though.  He even defended me in front of his.  That has to
count for something when it comes to whatever he is truly feeling and is afraid
to show.

And maybe he is holding
off on being more intimate because he has seen what the previous guys have done
to me.  Maybe he doesn’t want to be one of those guys and wants to wait until
he can be sure that he is able to love me.

Either way, I shouldn’t
really complain.  He has been a better man to me as a friend than most of the
guys that I’ve dated.  Besides how I feel about him, I like how I feel when I
am with him.  I just hope that I can keep him and make him feel like I do.

Oct. 24, 2010

I got the test results
back today.  I don’t have any STDs.  I was really happy to hear it, and I
wanted to tell Jack, except that I didn’t quite know how.  There’s no good way
to tell the man you love, “Hey, I know I was a bit of a slut before I met you,
but I just got tested.  You can screw me and not have to worry about catching
anything.”

There were so many
times today that I wanted to tell him.  I just felt ashamed.  It’s not that
it’s the first time I’ve been tested.  I once dated a guy, Judson Roberts.  I
thought that I really loved him at the time.

He was really smart and
really good looking.  He had a beautiful smile and dimples.  And he had the
most beautiful blue eyes that were made even more beautiful by the fact that
they were brought out by his perfectly tanned skin and dark black hair.

We had been going out
for about a month and were about to get serious.  And then we just suddenly
stopped.  He told me that he only fucked women that were disease free and that
I should get tested because... “I know you’ve been around.”

So I got tested.  I
felt so bad about myself and everything that I’ve ever done that I felt like I
had to.  I mean, Judson was so smart and handsome.  If he rejected me, the man
that would accept me would hardly be worth having.  I figured that it was
better to have him than to settle for the alternatives.

Once the results came
in okay, we did have sex.  Well, we didn’t have sex immediately.  I had to get
on the pill.  That’s actually when I started to take the pill.  Judson didn’t
like to wear condoms, so he made his girlfriends get tested before he would
sleep with them.  Sorry.  “Fuck” them.  I should use his words.

I think his objection
to condoms was partly comfort.  He said, “You wouldn’t stick a bag over your
head.  Why would you stick one over your little buddy?”  And he said something
about pulling the hairs when he took it off.

He also gave me the
environmental argument.  He said that condoms were made of latex, which were
made of oil.  In addition to using up a non-renewable energy source, we would
be filling up the landfills with bodily fluids and something that isn’t
biodegradable.

It sounded like a
reasonable argument at the time, although I did question it a little.  It was
just that I thought that he was so smart that I didn’t really want to appear to
be even more stupid than I really am.

I thought a lot about
Judson the other night as I was lying in bed with Jack with the knowledge of
the test results, but, for some reason, I felt really ashamed about bringing up
my test results to Jack.

When I finally got up
enough nerve to tell him, he seemed really confused by my telling him that I
had gotten tested.  I tried to explain it as I was on the pill and that some
guys don’t like condoms for environmental reasons, or because they pull your
dick hairs.

And Jack just looked at
me as if I were crazy.  He then kissed me on the forehead and said, “I’ve been
living with you for over a month now.  I’m not really worried about getting
diseases from you.  And in case you haven’t noticed, I throw away the plastic
bags that we get from the store instead of recycling them.”

He then just laid down
and tried to go to sleep.

That’s when I told him
about Judson.

Instead of judging me,
he just said, “Liselle, I don’t care about a woman’s past before she knew me. 
I only care how she is when she is with me.”

And as we talked, he
said that neither I nor anything I did in the past was preventing him from
making love to me.  He said that he was going through a lot of stuff right now
and that it was him who was the problem.

He seemed sincere.  He
has never lied to me and has always been honest with me.  But I have had lots
of guys say that “it’s not you, it’s me.”  And they always say this right
before they’re about to leave you.

I want to believe Jack
and think that he’s not like other guys.  I just look at myself in the mirror
and see what I look like naked.  I know that I’m not the most intelligent girl,
and that Jack probably would be better suited to somebody smarter.  And I look
at my past, and I see very little that would make him want me.  There’s a
reason that guys sleep with me and never really have lasting relationships with
me.

And then I look at
Jack.  I look at all of the wonderful things about him and how he could make
any girl happy.  I mean, he was willing to put off having sex with the girl
that he really loved just because he respected her and her belief system.

I know when it’s me and
not the guy.  I’ve fallen for enough men that have never been able to love me
back to know what the problem is.